Communication

Here at The Son-Rise Program Intensive we have a 6 year old Autistic boy with gorgeous freckles. He uses many gestures to communicate, he points, waves, nods his head yes and no, communicates how many things there are by putting up the same amount of fingers, and kicks or slaps his Dad to let his Dad know that he wants to play with him.

So many lovely gestures to indicate what he wants, all of them work for him, including the one of kicking his Dad to initiate a game. Here's how:

His Dad is playing a great interactive game of scooping him up in his arms and tickling him, they play this together laughing for a couple of minutes. Then he stops playing the game and isms for a while lying on his back staring and playing with a little dog, when he is finished with his ism, he turns to his Dad looks at him and kicks his Dad in the stomach, his Dad then starts another tickle game with him, by immediately scooping him up. It became clear after watching this boy initiate every game with his Dad with a slap or a kick that this was this child's way of telling his Dad he wanted to play.

Sometimes our children's kicking, biting, hitting, etc is just a communication. They are not intending to hurt us, nor are they trying to button push.

So here this week at The Autism Treatment Center of America we are teaching both this little boy to use another way to communicate when he wants to play, like using words such as "tickle" or "play", and his Dad to tell his little boy that he does not understand it when he is kicked, but he does understand when his son says, "tickle" or "play".

This lovely boy is so smart he is getting it already!

Much love to you all
Kate